Paula Galinsky
07/05/2020 - 7:00
- Clarín.com
- Society
Parents working, children studying or playing. Everyone in quarantine, everyone in the house. We could imagine that, during this time inside, hand in hand with a decrease in traffic accidents, we would be facing an increase in domestic accidents . However, emergency experts consulted by Clarín assure that, although there are always injured by this issue and of all ages, the claims fell, including those in the home . Meanwhile, they also warn of new injuries linked to the cleaning routines that were implemented by the coronavirus.
“We had about 100 accidents per month and today we received 20, the drop is 80% . There are almost no more road accidents, we have no eventualities in schools, because they are closed, nor sports-related injuries, ”Jorge Fiorentino, head of the Emergency Department of the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital, told this newspaper.
And he adds: "It is true that the majority of accidents are occurring in the home, because it is the only area in which boys are found, but even despite this, the injured are fewer than before ."
According to the specialist, in these circumstances children are under greater supervision . “Prior to quarantine, it happened that there were boys who were left in the care of an older brother and suffered injuries. The situation changed with adults in the home, although they are working they have possibilities to control their children ”, contributes Fiorentino.
From SAME they agree that the number of domestic accidents in general decreased: "Calls to this line to our emergency line fell by 10% since the beginning of the quarantine," they confirmed.
Meanwhile, a report by the medical emergency service Acudir shows that the demand for home care due to emergencies and urgencies was lower during the quarantine compared to the same period last year. In April, the drop was 4%. In May, 16%. And in June the decrease reached 28% .
Dan Hojman, 25, crashed on Father's Day Sunday with a French press coffee maker. "It was locked, I tried to pull the glass part up and it broke in my hand," he tells Clarín . The next thing he saw was a lot of blood. He tried to stop the bleeding with napkins, he also tried putting his hand under the stream of water in the kitchen sink. But nothing.
Dan Hojman, 25, cut off his hand with a glass and had to urgently go to the guard on Father's Day.
“ There was no other choice but to go to the guard because it kept bleeding. Also, I thought it had a nailed glass ”, he adds. She had been very little since the beginning of the quarantine, since her work can be done online, and visiting a health center in this context was not in her plans. “The topic generated a little uncertainty for me. I didn't know if I was going to find a full guard or if I was going to know where to enter. I didn't want to come across those who come with symptoms compatible with the coronavirus, ”explains Dan.
He chose to go by car, a family member came to look for him and left him in front of the Miter Sanitarium. “Once inside they took my temperature with the pistolite and referred me to trauma. It was empty, so they attended me quickly. They cleaned the wound, sutured me and bandaged me ”, summarizes Hojman, who in a few days will have to return to have the stitches removed, although he assures that he is calmer because he knows what he is going to find.
Lucas Navarro, secretary of the National Injury Prevention Committee of the Argentine Pediatric Society (SAP), fears that, in some cases, people will not consult for fear of the coronavirus. In this sense, he suggests that parents, in an accident, make at least a video call with the pediatrician to check whether or not what happened requires a visit to the guard.
"If a boy, for example, falls from a bunk bed, that is, twice his height, you have to consult even if the parents see it well and think it was just a scare," says Navarro and asks that they not be left behind. to be.
He says that trauma to the skull is the most frequent injury among children for "jumping and falling" but that runs on guard occur more in cases of burns "with water for mate or with very hot foods such as stew" .
"When the temperature drops further, cases of injuries with heaters and braziers will begin to arrive," says the SAP benchmark.
You should also be careful to bring your hands closer to a heat source after putting on alcohol gel. "It is a product that is being widely used by Covid-19 . And it happens often that people come to treat themselves with burned hands , ”says Navarro.
The use of cleaning products, which intensified in the context of the pandemic, often leads to poisoning . “To avoid them, it is important that bleach and liquid soaps are not available to children. The ideal is to have this type of liquid at height or under lock and key, and never in soda bottles because children drink them, ”he advises.
Another situation that you are seeing is that "people mix bleach with detergent." " They are substances that when brought together generate a toxic vapor . Exposure in a poorly ventilated environment is very dangerous to health. In those cases you have to go to the doctor yes or yes ”, she adds.
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